December 14, 2011Black day on a white suit.

While I listen to “Permission to speak” by Main Flow and 7L, I have to write about Kevin Coval “L Vis Lives”, new book 2011, that amazingly i grabbed on the go from Seattle Central Library. Here is an amazing article from a connoisseur and Coval´s classmate Michael Volpe you bet is worth a read. And how i have been repeating mentally endlessly Amiri Baraka´s “Poetry is revolution”, and rhymes are rhymes, slam is slam, and how the words take off, in all their grace and power. And that´s to that.Always dismissed poetry, because I said it was easy. I walk poetry, I breathe poetry, I piss punk poetry a la Patti Smith. Easy. But then, I came to realize its true power, and remembered the happiness that Edinbrah (long live Scotland! ) and its wonderful Poetry Library, the Poetry Army and the biggest monument ever to be dedicated to a poet (Sir Walter Scott, famous for his novels, yet a poet as well) brought into my life. Well the statue, brought a spear up my foot, on a drunkard night of Goose whiskey and failed threesome with teenagers.

As a white southern European, hip-hop came to me, as everything from the outside world of coolness (America, precisely the U.S.A)…late. It was late 80s and early 90s that we started rapping and dealing with yuppies infesting downtown Madrid. I used to record on a tape a Rap Program aired on a somewhat mainstream radio (thank god) at a really odd hour on saturday nights, I used to cut it, to have all the Biggies, or Run DMCs, and the early Spanish rap. Which was more like a joke. And that was that.

Then it became a bit more popular, and on my Freshman year 1995, in the midst of grunge and indie, there was Ilia. A weird name, for a weird kid. She was sporting a Hornet´s basketball tee, a cap, and oh my, she was a rapper from a blue-collar borough in southern Madrid. Don´t get me wrong, we don´t have projects. So when this thug rap burst five years ago, we all laughed hard. We don´t own guns, there is drug dealing, prostitution and all…but hardly gun shootings, we don´t say the word hommies, bitches, nor projects. We say bloques, that´s what we say. And also, there where big acts already going on in Spain´s hip hop scene. Like really good ones. So La Chula, me la chupa. La chula can suck my left one.

So anyhow, after Ilia, I lost sight of rap and hip hop. And it wasn´t till my Junior year, that I moved to Los Angeles, CA. The same year Tupac got shot. In El Lay, I embraced Bauhaus thanks to my friend Patty, as gothic as death herself…but most importantly the already popular growing hip hop rap culture, of black America. The gang time, the thug time. Like real thug. There were the shootings between Bloods and Crips, and I was scared to the bone to drive on the 6th. One of my besties in West Covina HS, was a black kid with serious alcohol problems (yes, am a magnet for this types) coming from DT in some sort of program to help out kids from troubled hoods in central LA, he gave me a Tiger and Winnie the Pooh shitty watch he stole from someone, and some tunes, some real tunes. I will never forget it, I was the fucking odd exchange shy student. I was so out of place. And he was so nice to me, in his early drunkness. Also the Color Guard girls, were my buddies, mainly because I did all their algebra homework, and those dancing, laughing girls were patio-friendly-hiya doin chica to me. So, in the end I managed, could be because am Spanish, and found my place among hispanics and black communities, even though the fight each other badly.

When I went back to Spain, it wasn´t till one of my besties started Physics that I met through her, one of my best friends ever. He started providing with the real shit, from jazz, tu nu soul, to hip hop, to rap, RnB, everything. He writes for Hip Hop Nation, has a tiny recording studio, and before I decided to move to Berlin, we came up with a duo “Gobierno”, i rap, he feeds me beats. I hope we actually do it, like seriously. We could make it happen.SOON. I need Gobierno.

Also my brother (whom am not speaking to, at this point, sadly) got badly into it, he is a good rapper, and knows shitloads about new Spanish rap. For realz.

Then my fav. boyfriend (a white English boy, beautiful face even more beautiful soul, that sounds black, when he MCs, or used to) was big into it, and we started talking music. And I loved it. And I love him. Great human being.

So this is the story of my hip hop rap and so-called black music in general, love affair. And outside affair from my usual guitar, hardcore punk upringing. A beautiful love story, indeed.